| Abstract: |
This study develops a flexible, citations-adjusted ranking technique that
allows a specified set of journals to be evaluated using a wide range of
alternative criteria. As a result, the set of evaluated journals is not
constrained to be identical to the set of evaluating journals. We also draw a
critical distinction between the influence of a journal and the influence of a
journal article, with the latter concept arguably being more relevant for
potential contributors and those who evaluate research productivity. The list
of top economics journals changes noticeably when one examines citations in
the social science and policy literatures, and when one measures citations,
either within or outside economics, on a per-article basis rather than in
total. The changes in rankings are due to the relatively broad interest in
applied microeconomics and economic development, to differences in the
relative importance that different literatures assign to theoretical and
empirical contributions, and to the lack of a systematic effect of journal
size on average influence per article. As a related observation on
interdisciplinary communications, we confirm other researchers’ conclusions
that economics is more self-contained than almost any other social science
discipline, while finding, nevertheless, that economics draws knowledge from a
range of other disciplines. |